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Proposal: Hiring of Top-level Dash Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

dashdisciple

Active member
Official Proposal: https://www.dashtreasury.org/p-2010.prop

This is a survey proposal asking the question: Should the Dash DAO seek recruitment and hiring of a high-level Chief Marketing Officer?

Why do we need a CMO?

Dash currently has a $1.3MM monthly budget to spend on marketing and R&D. Due to the structure of the DAO, no unspent portion of this fund can be saved or carried over to the next month. Effective utilization of this budget is the key to Dash's continued growth and success. The budget must be deployed, but it must be deployed in a sensible, strategic, and profitable manner. We believe that the most effective way to accomplish this goal is to hire a full-time CMO, just as would be expected in any conventional company of Dash's size.

What will this cost?

According to PayScale.com and our own research, to attract top-talent, we believe this position should be paid somewhere between USD $200,000-$450,000 per year, depending on experience and location of operations. The salary will be paid out on a monthly basis using a multi-month proposal, and the monthly contract can be canceled by MNO vote at any time if the CMO fails to perform to the MNOs' expectations.

What would this CMO's duties be?

The duties of the Dash CMO would be very similar to the duties of a CMO at any other company. He will provide a constant, fresh stream of good marketing proposals to the DAO to be put before a vote of MNOs. He'll be in charge of pricing the various aspects of each of his proposals, lining up subcontractors to complete the tasks, and presenting a cohesive marketing strategy for everyone else in Dash to plan around. He'll be working full-time, often getting his own hands dirty until he has built a team.

How would this work?

This new Chief Marketing Officer would answer only to the MNOs by way of vote. He would be paid entirely in Dash just like any other proposal owner, at a competitive rate for top-level talent.

Would he receive a discretionary fund or would all his proposals go up for a vote?

Included in his salary would be a nominal amount of Dash that he could use to make proposals to the board. He would be responsible for putting up effective proposals with well thought-out execution plans. An experienced CMO of this caliber will likely have his own trusted team to subcontract to, or he may hire from within current Dash proposal owners, or both.

Shouldn't this wait until after Evolution is out?

No. Dash has a product right now, and it has a budget right now. Although there is plenty of room for improvement, it's a better product than any of the competing currencies, and people are already buying it. We need to market what we have so that when Evolution does come out, Dash will be in a much stronger position to competitively market and grow that product as well. Every company continually improves upon their products, but that does not prevent them from going as far as they can with the products currently available.

How will this magical CMO be found?

With Dash's $1.3 million monthly budget, Dash can afford a top-level CMO and it should accept no less. Dashdisciple, in combination with the DashTreasury.org team, will volunteer their time, money, and other resources to help locate potential candidates. In addition to press releases, we will initiate head-hunting at well-known online companies who have demonstrated impressive growth in a variety of competitive industries. Combined with our efforts, we would ask that everyone in the Dash community call upon all of their connections and resources to spread the word that Dash is hiring for a very unique, well-paid CMO position. We are not opposed to also calling on professional recruitment services, but that would have to be funded in a separate proposal.

Would this CMO then control 100% of Dash's marketing?

No. The Dash DAO was built to be decentralized, and it already has some marvelous proposal owners working for it. Anyone outside of the CMO's team will be encouraged to submit their own independent proposals. Once their proposals are approved, the CMO and his team will make themselves available to helping the independent proposal owners in any way they can, incorporating them into a general strategy, if applicable.

Can you give us an example of who this CMO might be?

We envision this CMO having been the CEO or CMO of an already successful and recognizable online company. Perhaps he's from an industry with a lot of carryover or maybe he's the CMO of a successful tech startup. Whoever he is, he'll have success under his belt, and he'll come equipped with a vision for Dash that the MNOs can get behind.

Who decides who eventually gets hired?

Once eager and competent applicants have been discovered, they will be required to post proposals to the board. They will post their credentials, their vision for Dash, and how they plan to execute on them. Just like with any proposal, the MNOs will look for a logical, detailed plan. The MNOs will elect this new CMO, and they will pay him the amount that he has asked for in his proposal if they approve.


You mention that the CMO would propose a series of marketing proposals. Can you give us an idea of what they might be?

Yes. Dashdisciple has donated his time to put together a sample list of marketing initiatives that the CMO might choose to pursue through full proposals. Please note that each of these proposals has their place and time, and the CMO's job would be to determine the best fit for each. The CMO would be in charge of creating his own proposals but would likely end up choosing some or many of the proposals below.

Here is a list of the types of individual proposals this Chief Marketing Officer would be in charge of proposing, pricing, implementing, and managing:

Search engines

1) Paid ads – Google, Bing – search, display, graphic/text/video, mobile/desktop/tablet

2) SEO – optimizing use of content and keywords on new/existing sites to rank highly in
competitive organic crypto terms

Social Media

1) Paid Ads on FB, track/AB test
2) Paid Ads on Reddit, track/AB test
3) Paid Ads on Twitter, track/AB test
4) Paid Ads on LinkedIn, track/AB test
4) Guerrilla Marketing – ie. $10 Giveaway promotions by region, industry type. Scalable, trackable, evolving strategies similar to #firstdashwallet.
5) Official Press distributions – Announcements going out systematically to each site/group.

Land based

1) Organized worldwide city meetups with structured, goal oriented, metric heavy agendas. (e.g. Bitcuners scaled worldwide, with trackable metrics. Consider the concept of a franchise, where meetups are delivered an agenda packet with budget.)

2) Sponsorship of organized campus Dash/cryptocurrency groups

3) Conference attendance with actionable goals: new investors, new integrations, press
interviews (Yes, Dev Core is already doing these very well, but there are many more to hit than they can handle.)

4) Regional cryptocurrency seminars

5) Hiring of project manager(s) to engage with proposal owners with funded proposals. Increase benefit derived from
proposals by offering extra tools, guidance, and by working with them in a cooperative manner.

6) Scalable regional business group involvement. Placing Dash people in each city's small business owner group, equipped with an agenda and budget.

TV/Video

1) Commercial production of a 30 second spot – buy in small pieces on late night, fiscally
conservative shows, gold/silver investor demographic, CNBC, Bloomberg. Testing first on
specific youtube channels.

2) Production of low-budget videos for specific landing pages used in other
promotions/advertising channels. (ex: several paid campaigns could lead to the same high
converting landing page with video, perhaps integrating with a Dash specific exchange promo)

Radio

1) Find fiscally conservative/sound money radio hosts. Buy advertising and get interviews. (ex: Work with DJs
to give away $10 of Dash to listeners or greater amounts to callers. Use blockchain analysis to measure effects.) Requires radio website
banners, links, actionable goals. Direct action required.

Press

1) Establish Amanda as official spokesperson (if she wishes). Provide her supporting resources so that the interviews come to her and her workload on tedious activities decreases.

a) Receives, then delivers messaging coordinated with marketing director.
b) Outgoing pitches to CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, Yahoo Finance, etc.
c) Runs promotions on social media such as $10/person Twitter promo.
d) Gains outreach through doing interviews on other shows, gaining email/newsletter
mentions.
e) Pitches to other nests of highly qualified audiences.
f) Solicits blog posts, sponsors prize amounts to closed memberships.

Guerrilla Marketing - General

1) Establish positive presence anywhere discussion can occur. Use supporting membership to
deliver most compelling message and defuse negative messaging by competitors. (without engaging with trolls)

2) Use creative one-off ideas to push Dash's message into the news. (ex. When Dash funds something
massive and exciting, leverage that.)

The above list are example ideas. Ultimately, the CMO would exercise his own discretion in what should be done, how it gets implemented, and at what time.

We would like the Dash DAO to begin the immediate search and recruitment of a high-level Chief Marketing Officer, to be paid entirely in Dash, by the Dash DAO. Vote in favor of this proposal if you agree that the Dash DAO should begin this recruiting process.

UPDATE:
72 hours ago, we asked the question whether removing ourselves (me, @abob54) from the CMO recruitment process could reduce any risk to the community. Since then it seems that some people would be put at ease if we were totally separated from this process, as we have not yet built the trust to spearhead it. We respect and understand this concern.

For that reason, I am officially rescinding my offer to help with recruitment (as stated in the proposal), and the same goes for @abob54. If there's any specific nuts and bolts help or advice we can offer when it comes time to recruit, we can be available to whichever trusted Dash member heads up this task, but for the good of Dash and our desire to see top marketing talent working for Dash, we will not get between the MNOs and the candidate.

We're really happy to see all this productive discussion about marketing, and we truly believe that Dash has incredible things in store for it, both in the short and long term.
 
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i think different fractions here really have to sit down together
i believe a lot of the posted above is already covered by dashforce and others
we do NOT wanna double down of efforts covered by Dashforce and others
(is this turning into a competition here ?)

same with the proposals and the MNO's
we have too many outlets by now
wasn't the idea to make it easier for MNO's to keep track of proposals and not harder (more to read)

Marketing is one thing - and i think we are doing very well
- the believe of more marketing will double our Marketcap is NOT mine - there are more important things than market cap in my opinion - specially integrate to the space and community !
- "pumps" like handing out 20 bucks to any user coming along - is a great 1 time initative - but i do not agree to do this longterm
- we have a ton of press coming out already - and spamming users / new users was NEVER our style !
- we work and deliver and market - and we came a long way with this !

there is a general hype in the industry going on to pump (or dump) coin - and that is total nonsense in my opinion
steady slow growth is and always was the plan !
Marketing is good and needed but ..... we do NOT wanna appear like some MLM (sorry for comparing) who throws everything at marketing just to get that price up by any means nessacery !
we were NEVER these people, and we do NOT wanna be them ! (and it is very easy to slide into that and "appear" in public as is)
 
@tungfa, you'll notice that the proposal is to hire a high-level CMO. If this person is worth their salt, they'll be able to craft a plan that is to Dash's greatest advantage.

I haven't run into a single person on any of Dash's communication channels who has been in favor of a short-term pump. This CMO's job would be to position Dash to succeed in the long term.

Also, in terms of sitting down together to work it out, you have now blown off two scheduled calls with me, (June 5 0900PT and June 15 1500PT) which tells me that you are not taking marketing as seriously as you should be and that is a problem that the DAO has the power to correct.
 
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@tungfa
Also, in terms of sitting down together to work it out, you have now blown off two scheduled calls with me, (June 5 0900PT and June 15 1500PT) which tells me that you are not taking marketing as seriously as you should be and that is a problem that the DAO has the power to correct.

easy there
i am in the worst time zone ever for this + there is still "general live" going on

same old newcomer approach ?
stepping in here brand new and telling everybody "how it should be done " ?
(and disappearing after when nobody follows your way ? - i have seen it all before )
 
No disrespect to the DashForce, but hiring a Chief Marketing Officer who has the experience to command a fair market value $200-$400k/year salary is not comparable to the functions that are already being offered by the DashForce, or anyone else we currently have IMO. I would expect that a CMO of this caliber would work with the DashForce and others to coordinate and improve their existing services with strategies that are proven in the business world.

Marketing is one thing - and i think we are doing very well
- the believe of more marketing will double our Marketcap is NOT mine - there are more important things than market cap in my opinion - specially integrate to the space and community !
- "pumps" like handing out 20 bucks to any user coming along - is a great 1 time initative - but i do not agree to do this longterm
- we have a ton of press coming out already - and spamming users / new users was NEVER our style !
- we work and deliver and market - and we came a long way with this !

-Marketing facilitates further integrations into the space and community because it brings more people into the space and community in the first place. Increasing the size of the community can have an exponential effect on the total network effect, as everyone being brought in has their own areas of influence and connections.
- Switching incentives are never controversial when Ryan talks about them.
- A good CMO would not be interested in spamming people with press releases or oversaturating the market, but would be interested in the most effective ways of marketing for long term success
- Past history of good or satisfactory marketing does not mean we cannot do even better by bringing in top talent
 
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This prop doesn't answer the question on how such person would be fired.

What if "the board" of MNO's doesn't feel that the CMO does what was promised?
 
This prop doesn't answer the question on how such person would be fired.

What if "the board" of MNO's doesn't feel that the CMO does what was promised?
Hi Akhavr, once a suitable candidate is found, they'll have to make their official job application/interview straight to the DAO in the form of a proposal. In that proposal, which will likely be for 12 months, all the MNOs will have the opportunity to interview them politely, but in great detail, such as a normal job interview would go.

Just like with any multi-month proposal, this CMO could be fired by MNOs voting them out. Either falling beneath 10% net, or being pushed off the budget by better proposals would be the equivalent of getting axed.
 
I'm not sure I would vote for this in isolation because I feel, if we can justify this fee for a CMO then we can also justify similar funds (or more) for R&D.

For example, if we mixed IOTA's Tangle with dash's masternodes, that might reap a lot of rewards.. but who's going to explore such ideas? I mean, Apple have good marketing, but if they also fail to innovate then... well, we've seen what happens.
 
I'm not sure I would vote for this in isolation because I feel, if we can justify this fee for a CMO then we can also justify similar funds (or more) for R&D.

For example, if we mixed IOTA's Tangle with dash's masternodes, that might reap a lot of rewards.. but who's going to explore such ideas? I mean, Apple have good marketing, but if they also fail to innovate then... well, we've seen what happens.

R&D is a great place to invest capital, but their needs are currently well below the amount of monthly funds Dash has available. R&D is generally more difficult to scale quickly than marketing, but I certainly agree that marketing should not take away from any required R&D funds.
 
@dashdisciple one of the problems we have with development is that any proposals that goes near protocol change is instantly rejected because, the typical excuse is, "core is super busy and Evolution should be our main (only) priority". There can be no innovation while MNOs hold this singular mindset.

I would love to see dash get a dedicated "non-Evolution" R&D team. And while this sounds off-topic, my point is, it takes a lot of money and I think a ying-yang approach would be a good idea.. not just pure marketing.
 
We need to find ways to spend all the budget money each month in a way that's going to help the ecosystem. Leaving unused money in each month's budget is a massive waste of opportunity. Whether through this proposal or some other, we need to find ways of spending unused budget funds. I could set fire to a hundred dollar bill and it would help the U.S. economy slightly, yes? But wouldn't it be better to spend the money on something, instead?
 
I'd rather spend the money finding a second ABJ (not to replace but to compliment)
Exactly this, GrandMasterDash. People who have achieved top level positions like this in their career almost always accumulate these rock-star Amanda-type colleagues along the way. It should go without saying that the right CMO will bring with him a smorgasbord of supporting characters.
 
Exactly this, GrandMasterDash. People who have achieved top level positions like this in their career almost always accumulate these rock-star Amanda-type colleagues along the way. It should go without saying that the right CMO will bring with him a smorgasbord of supporting characters.

Yes, this is true and I am swayed by this.
 
Proposal Evaluation Committee


Hi dashdisciple

As you know Dash is growing every day.
To deal with the increased number of proposal, a Proposal Evaluation Committee (PEC) has been created. This work is being done by volunteers (mostly Master Node Owners themselves).
We would like to know if you are planning to submit your proposal officially, i.e. Pay the 5 Dash to submit your Proposal?
The Dash Network actually have had a Dash Project Proposal Template for a number of years and we try to get the pre-proposal owner to read and stick to it, as it includes every useful information for a MNO (Masternode Owner) to take an informed decision before voting on whether to pass your proposal or not.
If you have not done this yet, please read: How to submit a Dash Pre-Proposal https://goo.gl/7jmwXQ

As you adjust your Pre-Proposal to our feedback, the evaluation is adjusted and this may be done a number of times (up to 4 or more).
Each time the chance of your Proposal being accepted by the MNO’s will increase.
If you want to know who will be doing the Evaluations – see here: Official PEC Pre-P https://goo.gl/qrbeXK

The evaluations also have another function:
To give the MNO’s and community a Prioritized List of Evaluated Proposals. This list will save the MNO’s and everyone else time and increase the chance of your proposal gaining votes. It will also prevent your proposal from getting lost amongst the horde or prevent it from not being read, because it’s too long or non-conforming.
Whether you accept our help or not: we will be doing Reports on all Pre-Proposals near the end of the cycle to prepare the Prioritized List of Evaluated Proposals.

If you do want to use our services (note this is a free service)
1. Once you have read How to submit a Dash Pre-Proposal https://goo.gl/7jmwXQ you might want to adjust your Pre-Proposal before we submit our 1st Evaluation, so we’ll wait for you to give us the go-ahead before we start the evaluation process.
2. Please note that we do not have that much time to give you feedback via the Evaluations. The final report has to be in 3 days before end of cycle and you have to have your last adjustments in 5 days before end of cycle : i.e.: Last Adjustments: 28 June.
3. We hope to receive at least 3 updates from you (if necessary) and provide you with the same number of Evaluation/Report feedbacks, but it does mean you and us will have to start asap.
4. To adjust your Pre-Proposal for the 1st evaluation will be a time consuming (+- 2 hours of work), but believe me it will be well worth your time if you are serious about getting your Proposal passed.

Good luck with your Proposal!
 
I think a CMO is a great idea. As proposals become more complicated, it will nice to have someone overseeing, and providing direction on a day to day basis. We may also want to consider retaining a CLO or legal counsel as I'm sure Dash will eventually need legal guidance with tax regulations and international law. For instance, do the budget proposals payouts expose Dash to legal and tax obligations? For instance, if a proposal passes and then payment is disbursed, and something doesn't go as planned, can Dash be sued? I have no idea, which is why I'm asking, but whenever money is exchanged for goods or services it seems like laws and taxes need to be considered. For instance, if the CMO doesn't work out, and we fire them, can they sue Dash or it's future budget for some kind of wrongful termination? How would something like that work? Thoughts?
 
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